Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

NEW MEDIA: Rickrolling

I've mentioned this in class, here's more detail (from this wiki):

Rickroll internet phenomenon

Astley rickrolling the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008

In 2007,[40] Rick Astley became the subject of a viral Internet meme known as Rickrolling. This is where internet users are tricked into watching Rick Astley's video "Never Gonna Give You Up" by following a link that claims to be something else.[41] Views of this video on various websites are now in their millions. The phenomenon became so popular that on 1 April 2008, YouTube pranked its users by making every single featured video on its front page a Rickroll.[42]
On November 27, 2008, Astley himself participated in a live Rickroll during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends characters were singing "Best Friend", the theme from the 1970s TV series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Midway through the song, Astley emerged from the float and began to lip sync his signature hit. At the end of Astley's performance, Cheese (a character from Foster's) shouted out "I like Rickrolling!".[43][44]
Despite the video garnering millions of hits on YouTube, Astley has earned almost no money from the meme, receiving only US$12 in royalties from YouTube for his performance share.[45]

And here's the video in question... (nearly 42m intentional views at time of writing!)

 

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